On November 7, 2017, the Democratic and current Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam faced off against former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie in a race where polls had both candidates running roughly neck-and-neck. Towards the finish line, Ralph Northam had managed to maintain a slight lead in the RealClearPolitics polling average. The winner of this race determines who replaces the current Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe.

And the winner is the Democratic contender Ralph Northam. The state of Virginia has made all of us “Never Trumpers” unbelievably and ecstatically proud that its voters selected Ralph Northam as their governor as he TROUNCED his opponent who resorted to racist type advertising as described below by 9 points (54%-45%). The democrats are cleaning up all the down ballot seats in Virginia.

This is the Democrats night as they are winning just about every race that they are a part of like in New Jersey where we now have a Democratic Governor, Phil Murphy.

NORTHAM/ GILLESPIE

Until Mr. Gillespie resorted to the tactics of catering to White Supremacists, his opponent Mr. Northam had been ahead in the polls by about 6 points.. However, as Ed Gillespie copied the president’s strategy of pushing the issues that White Supremacists love like, keeping in place Confederate statues, the polling numbers between the two, narrowed significantly. It appeared that Ed Gillespie could possibly win. The republicans became competitive by the marketing of fear, decisiveness, with mating calls to White supremacists.

In 2016, the Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won the State of Virginia by 5 points over Donald Trump. That this race came close towards the end, is a shocker, in that it seemed that marketing to racists in a southern state appeared to have momentum.

The republicans’ ads against sanctuary cities/ fear of crime were frequently televised even though sanctuary cities are not allowed by law in Virginia. Note the president’s tweet below about M13 gangs. I have been arguing that Democrats need to be able to state for the record that they are against crimes, felons and gangs, no matter what color, religion, nationality the criminals are, period.

Here’s the rest of the story on how Ed Gillespie ran his race…

On November 4, 2017, the Washington Post Editorial Board penned the following op-ed piece, “Ed Gillespie wages war on his own principles.”

“AS VIRGINIA’S gubernatorial campaign intensified just after Labor Day, we published an editorial criticizing Ed Gillespie, the Republican candidate once known as a fixture of the GOP establishment, for flirting with the electorate’s “most noxious elements” by using Confederate monuments as a wedge issue just weeks after they were the rallying cause for racists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.”

“Mr. Gillespie’s campaign protested angrily, insisting to us that his focus, and that of Virginians, was on reducing penalties for marijuana possession; reforming the criminal-justice system with a focus on redemption; sluggish job creation and wage growth; sea-level rise; the opioid epidemic; surging gang activity; and the educational achievement gap.”

“Since then, however, Mr. Gillespie has doubled down on the politics of divisiveness and fear. His campaign’s thrust has not been just a dog whistle to the intolerant, racially resentful parts of the Republican base; it’s been a mating call.”

ED GILLESPIE

“Already, its cost is clear, both to Mr. Gillespie’s own moral stature and to Virginia’s status as a centrist state that, until now, has retained a modicum of political civility. By embracing President Trump’s inflammatory political tone with an advertising campaign that equated illegal immigrants with gang violence, harped on Confederate statues and suggested child sex predators are being armed by Democrats, the Gillespie campaign has crashed through the guardrails of decency.”

AD BY ED GILLESPIE

“Whether to leave or remove Confederate statues may be a genuine disagreement — Mr. Gillespie would leave them; Ralph Northam, his Democratic opponent, would remove them; neither could decide in most cases, which are under local control. But for Mr. Gillespie to whip up passions by stressing the issue immediately after the violence in Charlottesville has been to appeal to those for whom “heritage” and “tradition” are racist buzzwords.”

“Equally odious is Mr. Gillespie’s effort to paint Mr. Northam, a pediatric neurologist, as an enabler of child sex offenders. He did so in an attack ad blaming the Democrat for restoring voting and other rights to convicted felons who have served their time, spotlighting an ex-convict who completed his sentence years before his rights were restored by Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D). It’s true that Mr. Northam supports that policy; it’s unclear how it differs from that of Mr. Gillespie, whose own support for rights restoration does not exclude sex offenders.”

“Moreover, by flooding the airwaves with an advertisement featuring an image of a hooded Hispanic gang member, and linking it to Mr. Northam’s supposed backing of sanctuary cities — which don’t exist in Virginia — Mr. Gillespie descended into ethnic scare-mongering.”

“The Republican candidate insists he is proud of his detailed position papers, which he carries around in a binder featuring titles such as “Collective Impact Model as a Framework to Solve Complicated Problems.” But who is the real Mr. Gillespie — the man who wants to solve such “complicated problems” or the one content to sow hatred, suspicion and dread?”

It looks like the democratic party has seen the light. We nasty women are doing the happy dance over this victorious evening. Republicans will have to learn to be more scared of us than their darn donors. Oh, what a night…

Gronda, turnout matters. Our Mayor’s race had been polled at dead even, but the winner used old school methods of reaching out to people and making sure the go to the booths. She won 58/42. It was good to see the Virginia and New Jersey results.

I would love to see the Dems vote in Alabama as their Senate candidate is strong and the favored GOP candidate is reckless and was removed from his judgeship. Keith

This evenings big victory for democrats will give the party impetus to help Doug Jones in Alabama. He is a solid candidate. He cannot rely on democrats alone but I am convinced he can draw on independents and centrist republicans. This is doable.

The democratic party took advantage of that resistance attitude against the president. You are right. Turnout was a major factor.

A wave of results like this could show the GOP what a mistake lining up behind Trump was and show Trump what a failure his policies are. The only ones to line up behind him should be those ready to push him off the cliff.
Huge Hugs xxx

This night of victories for democrats has been a big boost in the morale for its members.It gives us hope that we can oust those cowardly republicans who have been putting their job security and party loyalty ahead of doing what is right for the American peoples.

This landslide of Democratic victories should scare these cowardly republicans into maybe, doing their jobs instead of cow towing to their donors.

I have yet to come back from the high of last night news. There are lots of us who are part of this resistance. It is not just made up of Democrats, but there are also independents and centrist republicans who are participating.

There are a lot of decent folks out there who are fighting back in accepting the president’s reality show/ circus as normal.

A few months ago, those experts on elections were convinced that democrats could not win back the majority of seats in the US (lower house) House of representatives. These same experts are changing their models and numbers., .